The moment holds a special place in the annals of Vatican history: On the afternoon of Feb. 12, 1931, Pope Pius XI launched Vatican Radio, declaring in an intercontinental transmission: "Listen, O heavens, to that which I say; Listen, O Earth, listen to the words which come from my mouth ... Listen and hear, O peoples of distant lands!"

Technology has aided evangelizing efforts since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and in the past 30 years the Vatican has added a television station and a website. So the Vatican's launch two weeks ago of its own channel on YouTube, a site better known for granting web immortality to entertainment clips and personal idiocies, was not groundbreaking.

"YouTube is a contemporary means of communications, and the church has used whatever means of communications are available at the time," said Monsignor Robert Wister, a church historian at Seton Hall University. "It started with apostles preaching, St. Paul writing letters, and the evangelists writing down the gospels."

Pope Benedict XVI, who turns 82 in April, has taken on a wider internet presence of late, not just through YouTube evangelization but through recent comments about the "so-called digital generation," as he describes it in his message for the Vatican's upcoming World Day of Communications.

And while that message tacitly criticizes overuse of Facebook and other social-networking sites, Benedict himself has a Facebook page, created by a supporter, on which 30,000 people have become "fans" of the pope.

The Vatican's YouTube channel, its home page adorned with a vista of the famed St. Peter's Square colonnade, contained 36 videos as of Friday, most of them snippets from Vatican television coverage of Benedict's latest speeches, translated into English.

The channel has drawn mixed reviews, and despite a stream of advance publicity worldwide it attracted just 550,000 page views in its first two weeks. About 12,500 people have subscribed to its offerings.

Its most popular entries actually pertain to Vatican communications and the internet.

The most widely seen video, with just under 100,000 views, is titled "Vatican Communications HD" and features a 95-second collage of pictures and videos of popes, often experiment ing with technology, from the early 20th century to the present. It includes footage of John Paul II waving into a computer with a camera function that shows his gesture on its screen in real time, and brief footage from his funeral in April 2005.

The next most-popular entries feature speeches of Pope Benedict regarding the internet. "Benedict XVI: internet a new way to speak of God" and "Benedict XVI: internet can promote the search for truth" have been seen 75,000 and 33,000 times, respectively.

Far less popular are videos of Benedict's speeches on peace, baptisms, and relations between Catholics and the East Orthodox. They have been seen about 10,000 times apiece.

One religion commentator, the Chicago Sun-Times' Cathleen Falsani, praised the Vatican's effort but said the content thus far lacks the pizzazz needed to attract young internet users.

"In Vatican City, where time lapses in centuries, not hours, this leap into the digital age is laudable," Falsani said on National Public Radio. "... The problem is, antiquated content in a new medium doesn't make the content any fresher."

ESSENCE OF FRIENDSHIP

Benedict's message for the World Day of Communications, released late last month, shows both appreciation of and worry about interactions over the net, especially over social-networking websites.

In the stately diction of Vatican-speak, he cites "extraordinary potential of the new technologies, if they are used to promote human understanding and solidarity."

"These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavour to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable," he writes.

But in a passage seemingly directed at heavy users of sites like Facebook and MySpace, he worries that too many people are using internet interactions to substitute for real-life ones.

"The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years," he says. "... It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbours and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation.

"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interac tion while also disrupting the pat terns of rest, silence and reflec tion that are necessary for healthy human development."

FACEBOOK STAR

Last year, probably without the awareness of anyone at the Vatican, somebody started a Facebook page for the pope, complete with his picture, birthday, and link to his page on the Vatican website. More than 31,000 people have signed on as "fans," and nearly 1,000 have written public comments on the site's "wall."

"I was thinking of leaving Facebook, but now His Holiness has created a presence, I am staying," Annie Judge, who lives outside London, wrote on the site Feb. 1. "Viva Papa, this is great, unusual, God really does use all forms of communication."

Judge, 55, a regular Catholic churchgoer and lay Carmelite, said in an interview last week she found the site for "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI" through a random Facebook search and spent two hours reading other people's messages after posting her own.

"I don't know who set it up, but it looks terrific," she said. "I like the fact that there were other people to communicate with."